Insight
by CampionSayn
Summary: A sequel to Perception. Knock Out is a little more curious on human culture, books often carry more than they say they do, and Bulkhead really should stop ignoring his injuries.


Title: Insight  
Summary: A sequel to Perception. Knock Out is a little more curious on human culture, books often carry more than they say they do, and Bulkhead really should stop ignoring his injuries.  
Warning: You'll be a little confused if you haven't read 'Perception,' but that's not entirely bad. Relatively minor references to Knock Out's lingering feelings for Breakdown and his budding feeling for Bulkhead.  
Dedication: To LM, the only person to review my other TFP fic. I was grateful, it seems.

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_-:-  
The Rock People are nurturing their new baby.  
-Meats Meier._

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i.

June Darby vetoed most of the book that all the kids had decided to explore and use to widen the Transformers view on film and plot that humans created. She didn't do it because she was trying to be too strict, but it was '_The Best 101 Movies Ever Made'_ and as such… quite a few of them were for mature audiences only and the kids were at risk for witnessing multiple instances of nudity, extreme violence and swearing.

The kids were, therefore, only allowed to watch about thirty percent of the movies mentioned in the book (ten percent of those needing to be edited by Ratchet or Arcee for the occasional profanity beforehand—public television versions of themselves, in a way) with the 'Bots and 'Cons on base.

Knock Out decided after watching the edited version of film number 63, _Fargo_, that he would be taking that book out of Miko's hands to check the red tagged pages and locate them for his own amusement. A human had been shot in the face, killed with an ax and then turned into red slush by the end of that film—there was no way that the stuff the Darby woman didn't approve of couldn't be even better!

However, if he wanted to get something from the little female human, than he had to talk to her guardian first and…

Sneaking around seemed like the better option than talking to the Wrecker that had been keeping an optic on Knock Out more than most of the Decepticons (though, the Vehicons and Eradicons were coming in as a close second to his observations and Autobot _feelings_) and had only just gone off that day to do something that was of no concern to Knock Out, but presented a singular opportunity to look around in Miko's things and snag that book of hers.

It was easy enough to get into those things as she left them laying about like the rest of her personal objects (_the radio and audio things that the children strummed their hands and fingers against to gain vibrations and form them into tune and rhythm; those little configurations of discs that looked like drops of mercury from Knock Out's great height that carried the recordings of music or film to be listened to or seen; the "video games" that all the children had gotten the Vehicons and Eradicons hooked on_) out in the open for anyone to stumble across if they bothered to. All he had to do was tip over that desk thing that Raf kept close to and the drawer that the book was held in popped out, splaying on the concrete and some of the papers bunching up.

He carefully plucked the thing up and into his hands and hid it with the simple action of closing his fingers around it and walking away discreetly.

Easy.

ii.

There were human drawings tucked into the pages of the book that contained information to the movies that the children weren't supposed to watch. There were almost seventy movies tagged with little sticky slips of red and each time Knock Out flipped to one of those pages, like a last hope, more pieces of paper fluttered out and decorated his legs and pedes as they were tucked under him in a lotus position so he could remain comfortable atop an abandoned building that bore the markings from fights Breakdown had been in that Knock Out liked to visit from time to time.

"Little hoarder…" the cherry red mech grumbled under his breath, using his claws to swipe the offending pieces of paper _(baring the sketches of Arcee in a supine position with Jack holding a parasol over her faceplate to allow her some protection from the sun; Raf standing on a chair like Knock Out had witnessed last week that allowed the human to practically fly across the Autobot base if Bumblebee flicked the wheeled office chair just hard enough; and multiple ones of the other Autobots during various incidents—Bulkhead chief among them, usually looking half-stern and half-happy_) off of his paint job.

The action of this movement, lucky for Knock Out, caused him to look up from the book's images of The Godfather parts I and II and find that, in the far corner of the courtyard, where he hadn't bothered to look earlier, sat the 'Bot that had been making a nuisance of himself by keeping an eye on Knock Out much more than he seemed to do with everyone else.

"Following me again, Bulkhead? I would have thought that you wouldn't bother if I wasn't street racing," Knock Out sneered, closing the book and setting it on the rooftop so he could stand to his full, much more intimidating height.

Bulkhead didn't answer.

Knock Out squinted and tried again, the back of the other mech's head not much to get upset over unless he kept annoying him.

He opened his mouth to give a loud and obnoxious, "Are you deaf?" until the wind picks up and batters around the larger mech, gusting through the lines of his transformation seams and armor and bringing an awful smell up to Knock Out that is so terrible as to make him drop the book and cover his scent processors with a noise of disgust leaving him. His mind picks up the connections to rotting matter and heated metal and he finds himself allowing his doctoring skills to kick in and make him lightly jump off the roof (_his weight makes little noise because the surrounding area seems more to be made of silent silt one would find at the bottom of a mostly clean pool than it is made of sterner stuff like rock or gravel_) and ignore the grass and flowers of yellow that are torn under his pedes to wander over beside Bulkhead; take a closer look and see if his processors aren't playing tricks on him.

Even sitting down, Bulkhead is larger than him so he winds from behind him like a big cat around a garbage can and tilts his head to survey that Bulkhead has his optics closed and is pretty much in stasis, save for the fact that he in ventilating more than only stasis should allow and if Knock Out squinted he could see heated air rising off of the green armor. The armor which seems intact, save for what seems to be a welded area along his spinal column that seems to be breaking apart from its healed condition and exuding that disgusting smell.

_("I don't know why Bulkhead keeps dragging your aft back here for repairs and buffing you brought on yourself," Ratchet had told him once after Bulkhead had left the med-bay to allow Knock Out some privacy so he could remove his chest armor and let Ratchet take a look at some debris that had caught in the protoform beneath on his last drag race, "I should think he wouldn't want anything to do with you lot after what Hardshell did with shooting him in the back after he was exposed to Tox-En."_

_"Well, my charms are just too much to pass up, I suppose," Knock Out had grinned lecherously, baring denta that were both very white and a little too much for that smile so he looked like he might eat the medic; and not in the good way._

_A racket prevented Ratchet from responding the that and both of them turned to find Bulkhead running through the halls with Miko following after him and yelling at the top of her lungs, "Oh, come on, Bulk! You'll love 'The Hunchback!' Quasimodo will totally be worth sitting through Frollo's bigotry!")_

Red optics looked a little closer at the wound and lifted a hand to slide a finger along the corroding metal, but he stopped himself before his claw touched down on Bulkhead. Not because he was being sympathetic—he could train himself to believe that; it had nothing to do with Bulkhead's kindness towards him, nope—or anything like that, but because he was a doctor, despite how much many of the former Decepticons would disagree to that. And as a doctor he knew that touching the wound without sterile hands would be like spreading the infection on purpose.

It seemed just by looking at the wound that Ratchet had been telling the truth about Hardshell.

Turning on his commlink and the connection to the Autobot base he never thought he'd actually use, Knock Out called for a Ground Bridge for two and within the space of a few minutes, the field was empty again.

Well, the field is empty, save for the markings of Knock Out's pedes in the dirt, the damage to the surrounding buildings that were a promise that that had once been an arena to both Breakdown and Bulkhead at the same time and the book that Knock Out forgot on the roof of the least damaged building.

A wind picked up and blew the pictures that Knock Out had pushed from his pedes, white paper with charcoal and pencil lines sweeping up into the wind like confetti pieces, spinning about in little dances that only the wind could believe in and then disappearing over the fields and valley surrounding like ghosts going back to sleep. The book left alone entirely in their abandonment.

iii.

Knock Out was not used to hearing thanks from anyone, but hearing it from Ratchet the Hatchet was a bit like hearing Megatron thank a lowly drone for service in the mines. Like it was something that was supposed to happen anyway, but needed words for validation to make real.

And Ratchet said it so easily that Knock Out sort of just stood there in the med-bay at the foot of Bulkhead's berth until Ratchet rolled his optics and turned back to the syringe he was going to fill with liquid meds and insert somewhere in Bulkhead that probably wouldn't be very pleasant one way or another.

"If you hadn't found him and brought him in when you did, there's the high probability that we would have had a grey husk on our hands rather that a mech that was salvageable. Tox-En has a pretty nasty fatality rate if it comes back in infection, and considering it had spread so far as to make Bulkhead go into stasis out in the middle of nowhere, we were doubly lucky that you happened along. So thank you for that."

Knock Out crossed his arms it that way he did so often with Starscream in the room or with a superior officer—that way to look like he didn't care, like nothing anyone was saying made much difference to him one way or another—and answered so simply that Ratchet wanted very much to drop the syringe, let it fall to the ground, shatter, splat the medication everywhere so both his hands could be free to smack the red mech, "It's not a big deal. I suppose I owe him for helping me with my paintjob every so often."

Ratchet finished loading the meds into the syringe with a huff and turned back to Bulkhead and—by default since he was leaning against the other's pedes—Knock Out with a stern look on his faceplates, "Well, either way, you'll have to leave now. These meds need to go directly into the protoform and since I'm pretty sure you've never seen Bulkhead without his armor—"

"I'm out, I'm out," Knock Out waved backwards as he stepped away from the large green mech, optics taking in the sight of him one more time (_frame covered in ice crystals Ratchet had used to cool him off in a hurry, condensation sticking to his helm and transformation seams, whole visage giving the false impression that he had gotten smaller just because he was weaker than Knock Out had ever seen him before and it gave him a twinge of feeling similar-ish to what he might have felt for Breakdown if he had been in the same position_) before the doors to the med-bay opened and then closed behind him. Leaving him in the hall with his own thoughts.

After a moment of silence that pervaded the halls in an almost unnatural way, the red mech raised a servo and touched the back of his helm and the lines along his neck cables and shoulders. Dragging Bulkhead in had left the giant's green paint smeared all over his shoulder and back armor. He couldn't see what they looked like, but he could feel the paint and how hot it was from Bulkhead's infection.

It wasn't _entirely_ unpleasant to feel.


End file.
